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Improvement Far Above What I Expected
"Our son was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD at the age of 5. He loved school but because of his diagnoses there were certain areas that were very difficult for him. The most difficult was reading. I became concerned in the 2nd grade that he was having difficulty sounding out words and in fact was having difficulty with some of the basic sounds. I was told not to worry because “he will catch up.” He never did. As an 8th grader, he was reading on a 3rd grade level and needless to say his frustration and anger were growing. During our meeting with the school, we continued to hear things such as “some kids never learn to read,” “if children don’t learn to read by the 3rd grade they probably never will,” “he may need a whole language approach.” In an effort to try and find out why this child whose intelligence seemed within normal limits continued to struggle with reading, we had him tested by a neuropsychologist. That testing showed that he had severe dyslexia, and a receptive/expressive language disorder.
He continued to struggle in the reading class at school he was placed into and did not want to go because “it’s not helping.” He made statements to us like, “if I could learn to read my life would be so much better,” and “if I could change anything it would be to learn to read.” You can imagine our heartache watching our child struggle just to do simple homework because his reading level did not match his grade level. In October of 2008 at the age of 15 he started at Sylvan Learning Center. I must say after so many different approaches had been tried my husband and I were skeptical. Our son was also skeptical but was willing to try one more time.
We are truly amazed at the progress our son has made in the 5 months he has been at Sylvan. Periodic testing by the center has shown improvement far above what I expected. Per the GORT-IV, his accuracy has increased by 1 ½ years, and fluency and comprehension showed measureable gains. But beyond the testing his confidence is growing. He is more independent in his homework, reading captions off the television, reading short newspaper articles and generally a happier, less angry young man. He is now talking about attending college for the first time in his life."
- Patricia, Sylvan Parent
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